


We'll Find Your Sayings To Be Paradox

by geckoholic



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“It's weird, isn't it? People like us, now living in the same space as the ones we defeated?”</em> - Gale's return to District 2 after the rebellion isn't as victorious as he thought, and it sure doesn't feel like his new home. Not until he finds unexpected company, that is. Gale/Annie, post-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Find Your Sayings To Be Paradox

**Author's Note:**

> For downbythebay_4. She wanted something that showed Gale in District 2, and listed Gale/Annie as one of the pairings she ships. The result of combining the two and using both her lyrics prompts ('though the truth may vary / this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore' from "Little Talks" by Of Monsters and Men and 'no bombs fell from the sky, no blood soaked the ground...but just as sure as the hand of God, they brought death to my hometown' from "Death To My Hometown" by Bruce Springsteen) as inspiration is this ficlet.
> 
> Beta'd by warriorpoodle . Thank you, BB! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Seven Devils" by Florence + The Machine.

The last time Gale hears Katniss say his name is when she screams at him to kill her, after she shoots President Coin. It echos in his ears for a long time. 

Fine friends, the two of them. Failing the other in the moment they need them to be strong the most, for purely selfish reasons. She couldn't take his life, he couldn't take hers. He can't decide if either of them would be better off dead.

And it doesn't matter. I happened, she made her choice. They both did. He didn't loose her; he gave her up, for both their sakes. 

Yeah. If he tells himself that often enough, he might convince himself eventually. 

 

***

 

The first few weeks in District 2 are like walking on eggshells. He may come back victorious, but while the government changed, the people haven't. Most of his co-workers of equal rank are fellow rebels, but there are also those who're from District 2, born and bred. And all they know about him? Is that he's one of the rebels who bombed the Nut. Some are grateful, welcome the new administration with open arms and open hearts, but there are also those who lost someone in the bombing. To them, Gale's the enemy, no matter who's at the helm in the Capitol. 

He can't stop feeling like an intruder, when he thought he'd feel like a savior. 

 

***

 

A girl named Kayla is the first person from the District he befriends. Not in that way; she's fourteen, smitten with a bad case of hero worship, and he wouldn't take advantage. But life as a quarry worker's daughter also gave her a sharp realism, she's resourceful and stubborn and smart and reminds him of Katniss; the one from before everything started, who thought _fighting for your life_ meant scoring enough food to get by and not getting caught by peacekeepers. The one who was still able to smile. 

Kayla smiles a lot. 

They take long walks in the mountains, she teaches him how to climb the harsher cliffs, secure himself with makeshift climbing gear made from rope and metal tools meant to work with stone in the quarries. What they don't do is talk. 

Gale thinks that's for the best. He's never been good at that, anyway. Given the chance, he'd probably screw this up with just a couple of words. 

After six months, Kayla's father gets promoted and relocated, and that's that. They don't write each other. A few years later he hears she's applied for a position to be trained as an engineer, but he doesn't care to keep track and find out if she gets it. 

 

***

 

After Kayla leaves, Gale keeps to himself. He has an apartment in a part of the village that's reserved for the higher officials of the new government, and now and then he goes for a night out with his co-workers, but that's it. 

His superior – a man in his forties, originally from District 10 – cracks dirty jokes about needing to hook up and blowing dirt out of the pipes, but Gale does his best to ignore him. 

Until _she_ arrives, that is. 

 

***

 

He was never tight with Finnick, and all he remembers about Annie is how weird she seemed at first, how her and Finnick laughed at their wedding, how heartbroken and sad she was after his death. 

It's not easy to connect those memories with the woman that arrives in District 2 more than two years after the Capitol fell, with a proud and serene air to her and a calm determination in her deep, green eyes. She has a toddler in tow that looks like his father and hides behind her legs, tiny hand clinging to the seam of her jacket like it's a lifeline. She looks so much older, even though she's hardly five years Gale's senior. 

Then again, Gale doesn't recognize the face staring back at him in the mirror every day either. Neither of them have ever really been young, he supposes. From child straight to adult, made to grow up too fast and too soon by forces greater than them. 

She smiles at him when she spots him; relief at finding a familiar face, he doesn't interpret anything else into it. But even so, it makes a warm feeling spread in him that he thought he'd lost, so sudden and so intense that he's taken aback, stunned enough to almost forget what little manners he has and return it. 

Familiarity. A bond forged by sorrow and sadness and the loss of loved ones to the same fight. That must be what this is. 

Gale decides to ignore it, wait for it to pass. 

 

***

 

The problem is, it _doesn't_ pass. If anything, it gets worse. 

Annie came to work for the administration, paper work and dealing with personnel and the like, which means they don't run into each other much during working hours. But she gets assigned an apartment not far from his, another honorable rebel that earned to be spoiled a bit. 

It takes her three weeks to get bored and show up at his doorstep in the evening, after the boy's bedtime. There's that smile again, a little embarrassed this time, most likely unsure if she's welcome. 

“I figured,” she says, then trails off. “Huh, I mean, we're both alone, we're both here, so we might as well be alone together?” 

Gale doesn't reply. He simple steps out of the doorway to let her pass. 

She gets the hint, walks past him and into the room. Her eyes roam over the sparse interior, clean and unpersonalized. There are a few decorative items from the Capitol making the rounds, but Gale never tried to get his hands on any of that stuff. It's clutter, doesn't serve a purpose. 

Annie keeps smiling, but it's more amused now. The thought that he's the source for that amusement – although he's not quite sure in what way – should bother him, but it doesn't. He revels in the sight. 

“It's weird, isn't it? People like us, now living in the same space as the ones we defeated?” 

“Guess it is.” 

Her eyes glint with something else then, something like malice. Satisfaction. “Do you ever wonder what happened to them? The people this apartment used to belong to?”

“No,” he answers. He never looked at it that way, never spared a thought for those who lived here before he did. 

“You're not a man of many words.” She turns her head, looks him up and down. “I like that.” 

Gale's no ladykiller, but he's got enough experience to recognize a come-on when he sees one. He's too busy being dumbfounded, though, to make anything of it, and the moment comes and goes unused. 

She twirls around on her heels – a move more feminine and girly than he thought was her style – and flops down on his couch. He's got a couch now. People in District 2, important people, have couches. 

And, okay now, why is he thinking about couches? He shakes his head a little, tells himself to man up and sits down beside her. They don't talk. They don't do much of anything, in fact, but when she leaves the sun's already coming up on the horizon. 

 

***

 

From that day on, they meet almost every day after work. For the first month or so she comes alone, after the her son's asleep, but one sunny afternoon in late May she shows up with the boy in her arms. He clings to her, face smushed up to her neck, and she's rubbing his back. 

Gale looks from her face to the infant and back, and she raises her eyebrows. “I hope you don't mind?”

It's not the kind of question women want an answer to, and so he shrugs wordlessly and lets them pass into the room. The boy stares at him from the safe haven of his mother's arms, but avoids his eyes when Gale smiles at him. 

He loved his younger siblings. They loved him. He's got a hunch that this is going to be a lot more difficult. 

Annie strokes the back of the boy's head, whispers something to him, and sets him down. His hands fly to the fabric of her skirt immediately, as high up as he can reach, the other hand going up this mouth to suck on the thumb. 

“Tarin, this is Gale. He's a friend. Gale, this is Tarin,” Annie says. Her voice wavers, the only thing hinting at how significant this moment is to her. 

Gale feels like he's being tested. 

She told him not long ago how she wanted to name the boy after his father, but couldn't fathom saying Finnick's name every time she addressed their son. In the end, she settled for the name of Finnick's father; a connection to him, but not one that hurts too much. Annie's own parents are dead. One of them died when she was little, the other during the early stages of the rebellion. 

Gale goes down on his haunches, arms loose by his side, tries to make his smile as open and inviting and trustworthy as he can. “Hello, Tarin. It's such a pleasure to finally meet you.” 

Tarin's eyes narrow. He sends a quick glance to Annie, who reaches down to ruffle his hair and nods. “Say hello, baby.” 

At that, the boy takes the thumb back out of his mouth. “Hello,” he says, and hides his face into Annie's skirt right after. She laughs and picks him back up, settles him on her hip. When she looks back at Gale the tension has drained out of her expression, relief painted all over her face. 

Gale thinks he passed. 

 

***

 

They sleep with each other for the first time a week after that, at her place so she doesn't have to rush out of bed after to be there for Tarin in the morning. She was married and has a kid and Gale hadn't been living a novice's life in District 12 either, back before their world came crashing down, so they both know what they're doing. It's slow and exploring and playful, and it's _good_. 

In the morning, way before dawn, Gale wakes up to Annie's face just inches from his own. He can feel her breath on his skin, her foot is tangled up between both of his, and she has hogged approximately three quarters of the blanket. 

Gale presses a kiss to her forehead, grins when that makes her shift and nuzzle deeper into the pillows. He closes his eyes and falls back asleep.


End file.
